Hi
I've been having a problem with fetchmail getting stuck downloading mail when
mail for an unknown user arrives in the remote POP server. Today I finally
figured what was wrong so I thought I would share... perhaps this will find its
way onto google and help someone else
This is fetchmail release 6.2.3+POP2+RPA+NTLM+SDPS+SSL+OPIE+NLS
Symptom:
1. mail arrives in POP multi-drop mailbox addressed to a user that doesn't
exist locally; lately plagued with bounced spam so it happened several times a
day
2. fetchmail wakes-up, collects the message and tries to deliver it locally
3. postfix cannot deliver cos the user does not exist responding with a 450
(RFC2821: mailbox unavailable) message
4. fetchmail responds with a message to root
Subject: Headerless mail from moil's mailbox on pop3.demon.co.uk
and buried in the headers
X-Fetchmail-Warning: recipient address kevinstanley(_at_)chek(_dot_)com didn't
match any local name
5. fetchmail immediately goes back to sleep
Since the problem message stayed on the POP server, fetchmail was unable to
collect any mail from the server
Solution:
Change postfix's "unknown_local_recipient_code" to 550 (reject mail)
and the bad mail gets delivered to root (with "set nobouncemail") while
fetchmail carrys on its merry way
As it happens, postfix master.cf says
# The default setting is 550 (reject mail) but it is safer to start
# with 450 (try again later) until you are certain that your
# local_recipient_maps settings are OK.
#
so point the finger where you want, though fetchmails error message could be a
bit more helpful rather than suggesting a problem with the inbound message or
perhaps fetchmail is reacting inappropriately to a 450 reply code
--
Drew